Exploring the tender relationship through pencil - Mary Cassatt

Mary Stevenson Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker. She was born in Pennsylvania but lived much of her life in Paris, France, where she first befriended Edgar Degas. This links in with my previous project where I used Degas as inspiration for drawing the human form. Cassatt often created images of the social and private lives of women, with particular emphasis on the intimate bonds between mother and child which forms my inspiration for my project. Cassatt's popular reputation is formed around her extensive series of tenderly observed yet unsentimental paintings and prints. The idea of being sentimental and unsentimental will be important in this project for me. In contrast to Cassatt, I aim to base my project around my sister and her child aswell as looking at old photographs of my mother and her children as well as my grandparent. Resultantly, sentiment plays an important role in this project as all of the drawings which I hope to draw will have a personal meaning to myself.i hope to portray the mothers and strong women, powerhouses. The concept of feminism may play an important part and inspiration may be taken from Cassatt who was a strong feminist in her time. 

To portray my inspiration from the historic artist who is Mary Cassatt, I have constructed an A1 artist research page with a watercolour background wash and one of my own pencil drawings positioned on the page. 

I have annotated the page which includes information about how her technique and paintings have influenced me and where the artist originated from. My first response to her work can be seen inter- grated within the page which shows my nan holding my sister when she was a baby. 

This drawing has been completed in graphite pencil in the style of Cassatt. I have focused more on line and form rather than tone and shadow which creates a sketchy feel. Cassatt' drawings are simple however they still manage to capture the tender moments shared between a mother and child. This is my aim when I draw these pictures. Although simple and sketchy, I still want to be able to capture the emotion contained within them. I have drawn this image from an old photograph. I like the usage of negative space within the image between the two heads. There is a tender loving bond which hangs in the air between the two figures, this is what gives the image such an emotional feel. I have added in tone only to the hair and to the jacket to distinguish between black and white. I love the composition of this drawing, the way in which the gaze of the woman meets that of the baby is beautiful. The focus of only one eye shares the important moment where the newborn baby opens its eyes for the first time and then closes them again due to lack of energy. Therfore this is an important moment to capture. 

Although, Cassatt tends to drawn her sketches using dry point, I will drawn mine in graphite pencil and charcoal.  I will take inspiration from her technique of not drawing the whole image and leaving it looking 'unfinished' into my project as I like this idea. It frames the drawing in an unusual and beautiful way.

To take this further I would like to draw on a larger scale using charcoal or graphite but still taking her sketchy technique foreward. I also like the idea of drawing mother and child through generations. For example drawing my grandmother which her child, my mother with her child and my sister with her child.